


Paperchains

by shopfront



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Developing Friendships, Dominion War (Star Trek), Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-01 06:32:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15137204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/pseuds/shopfront
Summary: Hope in darkness can be a fragile thing, made stronger by the presence of unlikely friends.





	Paperchains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinealightonme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/gifts).



> Thank you to K for the beta!

“Hello, Jake.”

It was a quiet voice that interrupted Jake’s contemplation of the stars. Hidden away in a far corner of the Promenade, away from the hustle and bustle of the main strip of shops, the sound of another person was surprising. Especially this particular person.

Jake’s eyes widened as he turned around. “Tora Ziyal,” he said, as he stared up at her from where he lay along the bottom sill of an observation window. After a moment he shook himself and leapt to his feet, giving her an awkward nod and gesturing towards the window to ask if she wanted a seat. “What a surprise. I… I didn’t see you there.”

Ziyal’s lips pursed together into a little bow of amusement as she sat. She ducked her head, looking at him shyly through her lashes as he curled back up on the seat beside her, one foot tucked under himself. The pause deepened between them for a moment. Jake fidgeted, and Ziyal examined the brightly patterned sweep of his clothes. The colours clashed a little against some of the more Cardassian sensibilities she knew she was already absorbing, but in other ways they reminded her of the colours favoured by her friends in the mines. When they could scrounge them. Not quite the same as the equally new and strange Bajoran fashions she also found her eye beginning to draw towards these days, but just as reassuringly chaotic and cheerful in their colours.

“I know we don’t know each other very well, but I hope it’s not a bad surprise?” she finally asked. The question seemed to stump Jake, and Ziyal's lips widened into a proper smile as he tried and failed to muster a response.

“No, not at all,” he said, shaking his head wryly and rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess I just wouldn’t have expected to be talking to you, given everything that’s going on. Somehow, I don’t think your father would be too happy to see you here.”

“I wouldn’t expect a reporter to let that stop them from speaking with someone,” Ziyal countered.

Jake barked out a laugh. “Well, sure. But I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Major Kira thought it might be something like that. It’s very considerate of you, Jake, but unnecessary. You aren’t interviewing me. There’s no reason for my father to complain.” Ziyal squared her shoulders at the end of her declaration, looking fiercely Cardassian for a moment.

Surprised by the vehemence of her words, Jake studied her expression for a long moment. “Major Kira’s been talking to you about me?” he asked, dropping the subject of Dukat entirely.

“More like the other way around,” Ziyal said, some of the sharp lines fading away from her expression again. She hesitated for a moment, sighing, and then said in a rush. “I was studying art down on Bajor before I returned to the station, and Nerys mentioned that you used to write more than just news reports. And, well, I suppose I was wondering whether you’d be interested in discussing your work with me. It’s harder being away from the university than I expected. Nobody else here is very interested in art, of any kind. At least not at the moment.”

Ziyal trailed off, her smile fading a little.

“The war has a funny way of sucking the beauty out of things, doesn’t it,” Jake said knowingly, and Ziyal nodded.

They fell silent after that. Ziyal shifted on her side of the window, turning to mimicking Jake’s pose so that she could look out at the stars with him. Away from the usual noise of Deep Space Nine's crowds, or the distracting call of artistic inspiration and family obligations in her quarters, Ziyal felt herself drawn to the view through Jake's eyes. Without the wormhole or Bajar to draw away attention, the stars spun out around the station and gave the impression that they were drifting peacefully through silent space.

“It’s beautiful _here_ , though,” she murmured. “I can see why you come here.”

“There’s nothing like the view on this side, is there?” he said, leaning eagerly towards the glass as he began tracing lines on it. “I used to sit above the Promenade and watch the wormhole, sometimes. But, well, it doesn’t feel quite the same right now, I guess. I’ve noticed that there’s some constellations you can see from here that look like ones near Earth, too. Like this one, it looks like Canis Major, only it has two extra tails! And this one looks like Pegasus, only it’s the right way up.”

Leaning in as well so that she could better see where his finger was pointing, Ziyal laughed brightly. “How wonderful! But what is ‘the great furred-riding-hound’? I didn’t think your planet had any animals quite like a riding hound.”

Jake snickered. “Is that what it’s translating as? It’s just a name. Um, it means a wolf which is a kind of animal on Earth. I don’t know anything about riding hounds, but wolves have four legs and fur and stuff. They're similar to a dog. You probably couldn’t ride one though, I don’t think.”

"I'm not sure I'm picturing it correctly, but it must be a fearsome beast to be up in your stars. Though it reminds me of trying to explain what a sinoraptor is to one of the other students on Cardassia. It was just after I'd arrived, before father was re-assigned and I had to leave the school again," Ziyal said, her smile faltering only briefly at the memory. "But we had no references to Bajoran animals in our teaching materials, and I only knew the stories I'd been told about them growing up. One of them was about a constellation just over there."

Leaning towards Jake so he could follow the line of her arm, she traced out the small lines that formed the body of the animal.

"I'm afraid it didn't help my argument very much, though. These stars show us the baby sinoraptor, who is brave and ferocious even when it's too small to defend itself very well. And over here is the hasperat that our ancestors would cook, only for the baby sinoraptor to sneak in and steal it from their hands. The others decided that meant the sinoraptor couldn't be too dangerous if it wasn't driven out of their camps, but the ancient Bajorans feared losing a finger if they tried to retrieve the food so it would get away easily with its prize."

Clapping a hand to his belly, Jake let out a deep laugh. "But that's a great story! Do sinoraptors really eat hasperat? I've never heard that."

“You know, I actually don't know," Ziyal admitted with a chuckle of her own as she glanced at Jake out of the corner of her eye. "Speaking of stories, are you writing anything at the moment?” she asked casually, her face still turned towards open space.

“Like, fiction? I wish,” Jake said with a bitter laugh. “I’m having enough trouble just getting my news reports done. Not that anybody’s reading them, but it still takes up most of my time. Plus, I’m pretty sure someone is scrutinising every word I write and not just the ones I try to send to the Federation. It’s not exactly fertile territory for working on my other drafts.”

Ziyal turned away from the window abruptly. “I’m sorry, Jake,” she said, frowning as her eyes darted away to fix on a bulkhead, before returning to Jake.

“What are you sorry for?” he asked, genuine curiosity colouring his voice.

“You’re not doing anything wrong. You shouldn’t have to worry about someone spying on you when you’re trying to create art. I can’t imagine- If someone was looking at my sketches before I was ready to paint them…. Well, I don’t know what I would do about it. But it wouldn’t be polite!” By the time she was finished, Ziyal found herself on her feet and across the hall in a huff. But when she spun back to the window, Jake was beaming at her.

“That’s quite a speech,” he said with a chuckle. “If I _was_ working on something, I think I'd be able to base a very interesting character on you.”

Dark grey spread across Ziyal’s cheeks and down the scales of her neck in a very Cardassian blush. “Oh, I don’t know that I’d make a very good addition to your stories.”

“You might be surprised,” Jake said. He held out a hand, beckoning her to sit back down.

“I wish I could read something you’ve written,” she said longingly as she started walking back towards the seat. “Something other than your news reports. Not that my father wants me to see those, either, but he can’t stop me from reading stories. Have you tried writing on paper instead? I have plenty of extra paper for drawing that I could give you, if they won’t let you replicate it.”

But before she could sit down, footsteps echoed from the end of the hall. Ziyal hesitated and Jake dropped his hand, and they watched together as Damar appeared around the corner. He paused mid-step, one foot raised comically in the air as they all stared at each other.

“Your father is looking for you,” Damar finally said, frowning fiercely at Jake.

“I’m sure he is,” Ziyal said quietly, exchanging a knowing look with Jake. Then she raised her voice and spoke sternly. “I’ll be along in a moment, Damar.”

Damar’s eyes narrowed. Even from a distance, Ziyal could see the clench of his jaw. But he dropped his head in a semblance of polite acknowledgement and turned his body away in a flimsy show of privacy.

Aware that Damar’s gaze was still fixed on them over his shoulder, she simply smiled at Jake. “Thank you for the astronomy lesson. Perhaps we could do it again sometime?”

Jake’s expression was warm, a pleasant contrast to the interruption. “I’d like that. You know where to find me!”

As Ziyal followed Damar towards the habitat ring, she glanced back at Jake. He was humming to himself, tracing star patterns on the glass once more. As she walked around the corner and he slipped out of view, Ziyal thought about her sketchbook back in her room and the way the starlight fell through one of the few habitat ring observation windows. It also made a bright pool of light amongst the stations shadows as the light did now around Jake, and her fingers itched to sketch the lines of its reassuring, hopeful beauty.

Perhaps next time she’d bring paper for herself, as well as for Jake.


End file.
